Unusual Business Ideas That Work

Uncommon Business is a blog about people who make money online selling unusual, strange and sometimes bizarre things or provide curious services. This isn’t “One Hundred And One Ideas For Your Homebased Business” – only real, working businesses with URLs provided, so you can do further investigation on your own. And if you do own an unusual web business, make sure you submit your story to us. SHLD

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Media Startups - MP3Mixx.Com

One of the issues plaguing the Internet since its inception has been online piracy. SOPA and PIPA and others before them have come and gone, and there will be others that are sure to follow suit, all with one aim - to put an end to piracy.

If you're a music lover and one who loves to download mp3 tracks from the Internet, there's a chance this piracy issue has already crossed your mind. Well, worry no more because mp3mixx.com, an online music store, is dedicated to providing the music enthusiast in you with portable music from your favorite artists, at the same time ensuring these artists receive the support they deserve. In plain terms, downloadable tracks provided at the mp3mixx.com music store are all legal. Guilt-free downloading guaranteed and the average track price is only 15 cents per track.

mp3mixx’s vast library of music includes albums, songs and artists ranging from rap to heavy metal to jazz and everything else in between, Billboard hits to relatively unknown indies, music by Green Day to Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga to Shakira. And if you’re looking for songs from yesteryears or music by older artists like John Coltrane or Miles Davis, mp3mixx’s diverse collection lets you have these classic favorites at an affordable price.

Why mp3 and not some other audio format, you might wonder. It’s because this format is the de facto standard for majority of music players nowadays. And if you have good equipment – earphones, headphones, speakers – to play your music on, mp3mixx can help you find your favorite songs and keep your playlist going on and on and on.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Love Saving Money? You'll Love These Seven Sites

It used to be that there were just three basic needs: food, clothing and shelter. And then education became a basic right. Considering the hard times we all landed ourselves into, saving has become a basic necessity, too. To that end, here are 7 of the best websites that provide superior value for your hard-earned money:

If you’re serious about making it big in business, then be serious about naming your business. If the name doesn’t seem to click, sure, you can always re-brand your business anytime in the future, but if you’re just starting up, re-branding should be the last of your concerns. Unfortunately, branding – or re-branding, for that matter – can cost serious money.

PickyDomains is a crowdsourcing pool of over 55,000 namer contributors. And to avail of the service, simply register as a client, pay the $50 deposit for a name or domain (slogans will cost you $75), specify your naming requirements, and then wait for suggestions to start pouring in. If none of the suggestions meet your desired parameters, you may ask for a refund.

For a business to thrive and win in a competitive marketplace, an efficient tracking system is a must. As well, employee communication should be efficient and properly channelled. It is for these purposes that CRM and corporate intranets came to be. Problem with these tools, they can cost a lot.

Bitrix24 is a Facebook-like social media intranet that is absolutely free for businesses with just about 12 people or less in its payroll. It comes with a fully operational CRM, real-time streaming, photo sharing, e-mail, sales funnel, activity planner, calendar and a whole lot more. If your business is comprised of more than 12 people, monthly subscription is at $99.

Low-cost carriers and online ticketing are two of the most recent transformations in the airline industry, making air fare sometimes too cheap that some airline industries were eventually forced to shut their operations down. Unfortunately for these low-cost carriers, JetRadar is out to make cheap airfare even cheaper.

As airlines usually keep their best deals to themselves so customers would frequent their sites instead of price-comparison websites, JetRadar, a meta search engine, sifts through every travel site, ticketing agencies and all 728 individual airlines for the cheapest deals and makes the data publicly available. JetRadar aims to serve as a one-stop shopping portal for everything airfare-related.

Coupons at supermarkets, drug stores, book stores – they do wonders for the wallet. And for the avid online shopper, coupons do wonders, too. Retail Me Not is a social platform with an active community of bargain hunters who share, rate and track coupons. Users regularly update bulletin boards to let others know which deals are the best and which ones are still active. Using your Facebook, Twitter or e-mail account to log in, it won’t hurt to check out what they’ve got to say before you go on and embark on an online shopping spree.

Freelancers, especially the very busy ones, have to have an efficient tracking system to ensure all the hours they put into a job, all clients they’ve transacted with, every project they’ve completed or are in the process of completing are properly accounted for.

SideJobTrack, a free tracking and invoicing software for freelancers, fits the bill perfectly. With SideJobTrack’s easy-to-manage reporting function, with just a click of the mouse, you get a breakdown of everything job or client-related. You can even customize your reports and invoicing templates. And did I just say SideJobTrack is free?

They say life is a never-ending learning cycle. I couldn’t agree more. And for technology-inclined people looking for cool software or instruction guides to further their tech knowledge, AppSumo is a great niche website to spend some time navigating. There is a Free Deals section that’s relatively well-stocked. And those that are not free are usually reasonably priced.

They say a picture paints a thousand words. In the business world, a logo represents a company, in part at least. While that may not sound like a lot, remember that every tiny branding bit is important to the overall branding health of a company. And before you go about thinking a logo professional is the only way to go to get an awesome logo, check out FreeLogoServices, a site that allows you to create your own logo design for free, whether or not you have any designing experience.

And only when you decide to commercially use the logo for your website, billboards, letterheads, business cards, etc. are you required to pay AUD $39.95.

Rent or Buy? Today’s Economy makes the Decision Trickier

There are many factors to take into account when trying to decide if it is better to rent or buy in the current economy. We all saw the major hit that the housing market took a few years ago, but it now seems as if it is starting to make a rebound. There are two main considerations to look at when exploring which is the better option for you-- the financial aspect, and the personal/emotional aspect of your decision.

Emotions and LifestyleWhile financial considerations are the biggest factors when making the decision about where you will live, your personal and emotional concerns will also play a role in deciding as well. When renting a home you typically cannot do things such as adding new fixtures like lights, cabinets, or vanities without permission from your property owner, or adding landscaping and fencing.

Aside from the permission issue, anything that you affix to the property becomes part of the property when you leave it, by law. Some property owners do not even allow tenants to change the color of paint in the home or hang pictures on the walls. If personalization is something that is important to you, renting may not be the option you will want.

Another important thing to consider is having a pet. Some people who rent property forbid any pets to occupy the residence, which significantly lowers the number of available rental units for animal lovers.

Financial IssuesFinances are likely the biggest part of the decision making process between renting and owning. When renting, you generally will only need the first month’s rent and a similar amount for a security damage deposit before moving in to the home.

Purchasing a home today is typically much more difficult than in past years. Credit standards are much higher, and banks and other lenders require down payments that are more significant. Barring special government programs, typical down payments in the neighborhood of 20% of the purchase price are required. Added to that, you will need roughly another 5% for closing costs when you sign the paperwork for your home.

Another thing to look into is whether you could rent the home cheaper than what you will pay for your total monthly payment. This has become much more common, with the foreclosure crisis and number of vacant homes. Many people who are unable to sell their house in the current climate will rent it instead, thereby driving the prices for all houses down in the process.

Additional costs when you own a home-- for taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and landscaping are part of the equation as well. If your roof leaks, or your shower breaks, you will have to repair it yourself or contract someone to do it for you. Renters can call their landlord to make repairs.

There are definite benefits to owning a home—you are building equity as you make your payments and you get great tax breaks on your mortgage interest. Certainly there are great bargains to be had in the purchase market today, meaning your equity should grow substantially as the housing market gradually climbs back to normal.

Overall, the decision to purchase or rent is a personal one. Some people just want the home to be theirs, with no one to tell them what to do. Others buy a home to “cash it in” at retirement time and find simpler lodging.

No matter what you decide, you should be prepared to do extensive research on the housing market in the area you have chosen, as well check out mortgage rates and payments at a comparison site like www.tomorrowfinance.com.au

* - this paid post has been placed through PickyDomains.com, world's first risk-free naming and marketing agency.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Need To Make A Quick Buck? Copy This Post!

As a reader of our humble blog, you are one of few bloggers invited to try out new blog monetization platform – CopyThisPost.com. We are working fast and furious on finishing the engine for this service, so nothing is up yet, but the idea behind this new startup is exactly what the URL suggests – as a blogger, you’ll be able to log in, find a post you want to copy (into your blog), copy it and get paid. How much? Generally $10 per copied post if your blog’s PageRank is 2, $15 if 3, $20 if 4, $30 if 5. Bloggers who post more than one post a day will be allowed place one paid post a day. Otherwise the rule will be there has to be at least two regular posts in between the paid ones. So you can make a good side income for your blog with CopyThisPost.com

What kind of posts are there to be copied, you might be wondering? Here are some examples that show you the TYPE of posts you’ll be dealing with:

As you see, these are generally well-written how-to or list type articles and occasional start-up reviews (we work almost exclusively with start-ups and web services). You won’t be asked to advertise electronic cigarettes or cheap insurance or any other SEO crap that is abundant in the paid blogging world, because our posts are written for people and not Google algorithm – the goal is to drive traffic, not SEO placement (this is why almost all links will be URL-To-URL, using anchor text in the middle of the post is allowed only when appropriate and necessary).

Which brings us to another important point – what kind of blogs should apply. Obviously, only blogs that have regular readers. A minimum of 100 unique daily readers is required, though 250-500 readers a day is what we really prefer. As mentioned, the pay is based on PageRank, since it’s a good measure of the quality of the blog, but we will consider blogs with page rank 0 or 1, if they have over 500 daily readers (this indicates to us that blog is good, it just did not have chance to get proper PageRank since it’s new). We don’t mind if blogger places occasional paid post, however, if your blog almost exclusively consists of paid posts (especially those advertising cheap insurance) – do not apply, since you’ll be wasting both your time and ours.

A couple more issues to consider – since you’ll be copying the post, you obviously won’t get any SEO bonus from Google or other search engines, because the content won’t be original (your blog won’t be hurt by it either, unless most of your blog already unoriginal). Since a lot of bloggers prefer original content only, there will be an option to rewrite the content – if you demonstrate that your English is good AND you are actually putting effort in producing a good rewrite. You’ll be actually getting $5 for making a good rewrite, since some advertisers also insist on original content only, but because the service isn’t automated yet, we don’t have time to moderate and pre-approve rewrites at this point, so currently copying is the only option.

So, if you are interested, here is what you should do. You can apply via PickyDomains contact form (CopyThisPost.com is a PickyDomains service). Use ‘Copy This Post‘ as subject line.

Please, include the following information:

1. URL of your blog (so we can check it out)2. PageRank of your blog3. Average daily visitors for your blog

(Oh, by the way, don’t lie with number 3, since we’ll ask you for a screenshot of your traffic stats later on and we’ll also track how many visitors copied post produced. I’ve had applicant who had 120 daily visitors and claimed 100-150 average stats and I’ve had an applicant with 350 daily visitors who initially claimed 1000 daily visitors – guess who we ended up working with? Accuracy is far more important to us, especially for low traffic blogs)

If your blog is approved, you’ll be able start making money right away, despite the fact that the homepage for the service isn’t finished yet. We pay via PayPal only, so you must have a valid PayPal account.

Crowdsourcing Startups - PickyDomains.com

So you came up with an idea for an online business and started thinking of a great domain name for it, only to realize that all the good domain names are already taken. Then you tried automatic domain name generation tools, but most of the name they generated didn’t make any sense. What to do now? Well, just crowdsource your domain name idea generation to PickyDomains.

PickyDomains is a cool service that offers 100% risk free domain name and business slogan or tag line generation service. It has a proven track record of generating great domain names, and business slogans such as SEOBook for Aaron Wall, eMomsAtHome Wendy Piersall, and SurefireMarketing for Yanik Silver.

How Does it Work?

To get started, you have to deposit amount depending upon the service you need. For domain name suggestions, the fee is $50. For business slogan suggestions, its $75. You can use credit card, paypal or wire transfer to deposit the money. Note that this money is only a deposit, which means if you don’t like any of the domain names suggested by them, you get a full refund.

After payment, you send them more details about the site you are starting, and characteristics of the domain name you need, like preferred extensions, length, and hyphenated or not. After that just wait and watch as people start suggesting the names.

You must check the suggested names periodically and mark them Liked or Disliked to indicate your taste. Once you find the domain you like, just mark it Picked to complete your order.

There are more then 44,000 registered contributors at Pickydomains right now, which means you can get what you are looking for within a few days, or sometimes, within few hours!

Become A Contributor And Make Some Money

You can also join PickyDomain as a contributor and make some money. Just register as a contributor and log into your account. Then, check the available orders to see if you can come up with some good domain names for them. If you suggest a domain that is picked by a client, then you get 40-60% of the fee, depending on you rank, which improves with the number of suggestions you post.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Cool Inventions - Meyer Sound Laboratory

A recent Zagat survey reports that more than the lousy service, what turns most diners away from a restaurant is the noise. There are plenty of possible workarounds to this, of course – curtains, carpets and other acoustically gentle materials. However, the sound level within a restaurant still rises and falls depending on the number of patrons. Or more aptly, the crowd’s state of rowdiness and the number of wine bottles they’ve already consumed.

Using state-of-the-art technology usually reserved for recording studios and concert halls, Meyer Sound Laboratories, a Berkeley, California-based audio engineering firm, has come up with a solution to the problem. Through a combination of recording equipment, acoustic materials and an iPad, controlling the sound inside a restaurant – loud on a Friday night or quiet on a Sunday afternoon, it’s up to you – can be as simple as the swipe of a finger.

Speakers, microphones and subwoofers are installed inside the restaurant, plus sound-absorbing fabrics that can be as weird as recycled jeans or as aesthetically appealing as a painting canvas. Microphones capture the sound, which then is sent to a digital processor. The processor, in turn, allows somebody – the restaurant owner maybe – to fine-tune the sound via the iPad.

The system was recently tested at Comal, a Mexican restaurant run by John Paluska, former Phish manager. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Paluska as saying, “As a person who loves to eat out and as someone who reads the restaurant press, I know that noise is a hot-button issue for everyone. What we wanted to achieve is often mutually exclusive. Either you have a conversational ambiance or a buzzy ambiance. What we’re excited about is that we’re achieving both."

Social Startups - SimplyUs.Com

Several launches have been made to date in the couple-sharing mobile application space. While most of these applications revolve around photo sharing and mapping memories around the course of a couple’s relationship, SimplyUs, a new app recently launched on the Apple Store, is out to make couples more contented by adding a little orderliness into their lives.

The idea for SimplyUs came to be when co-founder Jonathan James realized that while he was well-organized at work, he and his wife were always having trouble coordinating their schedules, especially about stuff they had to work on together. As a consequence, SimplyUs’ focal point is built around a joint calendar and lists.

Using the app is fairly easy. It works by making entries into the users’ existing calendar systems either from within or outside the app – like Google Calendar, for example. It then synchronizes all updates made. The app also has a list function tha t allows couples to add to-do lists, such as a shopping list. And just like those that came before it, SimplyUs has a photo-sharing capability. All entries into the app can be commented on, allowing users to leave annotations as they append or delete entries.

SimplyUs may have been designed with couples in mind, but James sees greater possibilities for the app. SimplyUs can potentially develop into a mobile tool for families, social groups and small business teams.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

How One Man Launched A Mobile Gaming App From Apartment. It Brings In $200,000 A Month

Four years after its launch, the mobile gaming app Parallel Kingdom (PK) is now one million players strong and brings in just over $200,000 per month in in-app purchases. Maintaining and growing the title has taught our team a lot about about creating deep mobile games, allowing us to launch another location-based game, Parallel Mafia, which has already seen traction. But it all began in a 700-square-foot apartment.

Our dream for the product started simply. My PerBlue co-founder, Andrew Hanson, and I were bored with homework one night around 4 a.m., so we decided to take a break and start a totally new project. We wanted to make a game with four goals in mind: it had to be played on phones, it had to be fun, it had to make money and — just for kicks — it would use the phone’s GPS. The iPhone had been released a few months earlier and the Android was just announced, so we wanted to take advantage of this new technology and gaming platform.

PerBlue was founded in the summer of 2008, while Andrew and I were both interning in Seattle. We both had really attractive job offers from Google and Microsoft, but we ultimately turned them down to pursue our own dream with PerBlue. The first year and half was spent bootstrapping, working for no pay and carrying few operating costs — with the exception of an occasional pizza or domain name.

Our team was built from our college friends from the University of Wisconsin, but the excitement of creating a location-based game for mobile phones was what really attracted them. PerBlue’s team was based out of my apartment in downtown Madison, and we occupied just about all 700 square feet of it. Since the entire original PerBlue team was attending college when PK was first being designed, we would go to class and part-time jobs during the day, and work on the game late into the night (sometimes until 5 or 6 a.m.).

Working in close quarters and for no pay required a lot of passion for the project, trust, and strong friendship. These things were the glue that held us together.

As the launch approached, we were working insane hours — sometimes 80 to 100 hours a week. At one point, one of our developers hadn’t gone to any of his classes for almost two weeks. Everyone was on their last nerve, but it was either now or never — we decided to strip 95 percent of the game’s features and push it live, bugs and all. Within the first day we had over 6,000 downloads, and four years later, some of those early players are still active in the game community.

The third iteration of PK, which launched in November of 2009, first introduced our virtual goods revenue model to the game. At the time, earning revenue from virtual goods was still a relatively unproven business model. The night before we shipped this update, I remember telling myself, “If we don’t make any money tomorrow, we’ll shut the whole thing down and I will be very happy. This has been fun, and it was a great adventure.” We woke up the next morning to find that we had made over $5,000. That day marked an important turning point, and the rest is history.

Parallel Kingdom’s in-app purchases and subscription services have allowed PerBlue to monetize the game and grow as a company. Our game has some of the highest revenue per player in the industry, and growth at PerBlue has been largely fueled by the success of Parallel Kingdom. We’ve grown rapidly with three hiring bursts, from a team of five to over 35 employees today. Given the fast-paced nature of the mobile games industry, our team and products are quickly growing and changing — and we can’t wait to share what’s next.

But since reading, writing and sharing about highly unusual business ideas is a never-dying passion for us, we are more than happy to pass the news about Odd Jobs: How to Have Fun and Make Money in a Bad Economy , a really cool book written by Abigail R. Gehring that got thumbs up from Seth Godin himself.

Abigail is isn't your regular business book author. Rather she is the editor of Back to Basics (an Amazon.Com best seller), Homesteading, and Self-Sufficiency, and author of Odd Jobs and Dangerous Jobs. She’s practiced living self-sufficiently since her childhood in Vermont, being home-schooled, home-canning jams and jellies, and enjoying natural crafts.

So this book isn't about getting rich, but rather about how to make decent income and have fun during this challenging economic environment (which frequently involves having muliple side gigs). I don't think the book is available in libraries yet, so grab your Kindle and get reading!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

TalkDesk Review

The cost of providing 24/7 call center support can be very steep especially if a business is just starting out. And those that are cheap usually offer sub-par services. Talkdesk is changing all that.

Talkdesk is an application that offers a cost-efficient solution to hiring call centers. Powered by Twilio's cloud communications technology, it essentially turns your browser into a call center, allowing you to make and receive calls, and have them recorded and transcribed. By teaming up with other services like Salesforce.com and ZenDesk.com, you easily get to identify who your caller is, what purchases he already made and other pertinent history with your company. Talkdesk allows you to have a full view of your customer from the convenience of your web browser. You don't even have to ask questions, not even his name, because all that will be retrieved for you the moment he calls up.

Let's face it. People always prefer talking to somebody on the phone more than through chat or e-mail, given that describing a technical problem through chat or e-mail can be very irksome at most. With Talkdesk, you can now provide the service your customers deserve for just a fraction of the actual cost, plus do away with the typical setbacks linked to outsourcing.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Business Of Design - The Macbeth Collection Story

Dress designer Margaret Josephs decided to be a full-time mom soon after having her son in 1996. "I couldn't take being away from him," she said. At the time, Josephs was also looking after her three stepchildren.

"My home was cluttered all the time. I decided I needed a storage solution," she said. And while she was at it, she decided to start a decorative storage products business.

In 1998, Josephs pursued her first idea -- decorative metal buckets. She went to Home Depot, bought a few plain metal buckets and painted them. She supplied 20 to a local store. "They sold out in two days," she said. "I thought I was on to something."

Josephs expanded from buckets to painted and decoupage trays, and other home accessories. A year later, orders were coming in so quickly that Josephs recruited her nanny and others in the neighborhood to make the products.

In 2000, she got her first big order, $40,000, and the business "exploded," she said. Two years later, "The Macbeth Collection" -- a name she picked because it sounded regal -- crossed $1 million in sales.

Her business today generates about $30 million from licensing agreements and direct sales. Her products are sold in major retail stores such as Barnes & Noble, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and soon in Target.

While she's enjoying her success, Josephs admits it's been hard to juggle being a mom and an entrepreneur. She's made it work because "women are amazing multitaskers," she said.

Her now 16-year-old son is "so proud," she said. "He calls me the 'Rock & Roll Martha Stewart.'

Hot Startups - PunchCast.Com Review

Facebook is going public. Pinterest is gaining a lot of traction too, with Tokyo-based Rakuten Inc. pledging an investment of $100 million with the site. Is it the era of social media? Canadian startup Punchcast sincerely hopes so.

Punchcast is a social media platform (see Bitrix24.com review) that aims to bridge the gap between Facebook and YouTube. At Facebook, relationships are founded upon people you know offline while YouTube and Twitter, according to Punchcast, are “overloaded beyond the point of practicality.” Statistics estimate that 60 hours of video is uploaded into YouTube every minute, which equates to about a century in just a matter of 10 days, practically an avalanche of information if not effectively sorted through.

The idea of launching Punchcast was conceived when CEO and founder Conor Lynch could not find connections on Facebook with whom he could potentially share his interest in English literature and Roman history. Punchcast aims to create a space for anybody from whatever background, whatever walk of life where he can share just about anything out there and get validation from people with the same interests.

Punchcast uses information filtering algorithms to connect like-minded users. Since January, the site has accumulated 3,500 users by targeting niche groups like BMX bike enthusiasts. If the company becomes successful, one can only imagine the groups of people that will benefit from Punchcast’s effective filtering methodology.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Subscription Based Startups - Citrus Lane

Citrus Lane is a new startup that specializes in 'care packages' for the parents. It uses the same business model as LittlePassports (or Dollar Shave Club that raised over a million dollars) , so the company essentially handpicks products for children based on recommendations from parents, then ships them off in theme packages each month.

The boxes are filled with four to five products tailored to the child's age, from newborn to 3 years old. For example, last December's theme box, "Home for the Holidays," included a comfort-grip cookie cutter, organic body lotion and a fuzzy baby hat from baby clothing company Zutano.

For soon to be parents, Citrus Lanes offers a special 'pregnancy box' that comes with organic lotions and tummy rubs, foot petals, specialty candy bars and Amy Tara Koch's famous Bump It Up style guide for pregnant women, among other things.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

An unusually mild winter in the U.S. made the economy look better than it was, as consumers purchased goods and businesses hired workers earlier than they normally would because of the warm weather. While this effect shows up in macro indicators such as retail sales and the jobs report, small businesses can have trouble gauging how temperatures and rain or snow directly affect their bottom lines.

Weather Underground, a site that compiles local data collected by 24,000 weather geeks with sensors on their roofs, this week released a free tool for businesses to use to look for patterns in their sales related to the weather. Anyone can punch in a location and time period to download a spreadsheet with detailed weather data. The file also has a place to enter daily sales (which comes prepopulated with fake sales numbers) and charts that show the sales numbers in relation to temperatures, precipitation, and dew point (a measure of humidity). The spreadsheet calculates the correlation between sales and those three weather metrics to show which have a meaningful relationship.

Weather Underground’s main business since it started in 1995 has been targeting ads on its site for brands that want to reach consumers during certain weather conditions. Companies can, for example, offer getaway deals to Hawaii during nasty winter storms, or hawk lawn furniture and garden supplies on the first sunny weekend of spring.

Showing companies how weather affects their business will boost awareness of the site’s advertising options, says Toby Skinner, Weather Underground’s vice president for marketing. “We want people in the business community to understand the value of weather data as part of marketing strategy as well as logistical planning,” he says.

Weather Underground’s site, which cheekily shares the name of the violent antiwar group from the 1960s and ’70s, gets more than 10 million page views a day, Skinner says. Other websites can use its API to tailor ads to the weather as well.

Clients have used sophisticated weather analysis to target ads and adjust their business to meteorological conditions. For example, Sears, recognizing that car batteries more than five years old tend to die after three consecutive nights of subzero temperatures, bought battery ads that would show up the day after the third freeze, Skinner says. The Cheesecake Factory looked at how restaurant traffic was affected by weather and reduced staffing on shifts that were expected to have fewer diners.

The new data tool is only a taste of the kind of number crunching deep-pocketed businesses routinely do with weather data. Skinner says it will help Main Street companies understand how weather affects their businesses too. “It’s not rocket science,” Skinner says. “We could delve a lot deeper into the analysis if we wanted to.”

Green Apps - EnergySaver

Believe it or not, handheld devices like smartphones and tablets are outpacing laptop and desktop sales. And people nowadays spend a lot of time on their cell phones. Handheld, lightweight and convenient as it is, it is easier to accomplish tasks on a handset than on a computer.

Now, what if you have an app that checks the power your microwave at home uses from the convenience of your cell phone?

EnergySaver, a mobile app currently pegged at $2.99, is a device that allows you to track your water and energy usage. It also allows you to analyze and adjust your consumption where applicable, potentially saving you loads of cash when your next utility bill comes in the mail.

The device is fairly easy to use. Based on the state you’re in, select the going utility rates for gas, water and electricity. Include your appliances, everything from your dishwasher to your hair dryer to your water heater, and the length of time you use them. The app then goes through an analysis phase, which results into an analyzed chart – pie, list or bar – that tells you which appliances are eating up all your energy. From there, you can make adjustments as you see fit.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Travel Startups - JetRadar.Com

Over the past 10-20 years, air travel has been significantly transformed by two kinds of innovation - lowcost airlines and online ticket sales. Both have greatly reduced how much we pay for the plane ticket and drove airlines that could not adapt to the new reality out of business.

JetRadar is a new startup that continues this innovation, trying to make cheap airfare even cheaper. Without a doubt you've already heard of Expedia, CheapFlights, Orbitz or any other online ticket seller that allows you to find the lowest price possible of getting from point A to point B by air. What you don't know is that the cheapest tickets aren't usually available through such services. Airlines don't like customers price-shopping, so they make the best deals available through there own sites only, trying to condition their customers that they should visit their (airline's) corporate portal and not price comparison websites where client may get lost to a rival airline.

So what JetRadar does (and what other don't do) is the following - it combs through exclusive deals available through 35 agencies and 728 airlines and adds this information to the publicly available data. This way you can find the absolutely cheapest price available, without having to search through individual airline websites one by one.

JetRadar founders have originally tested the idea on smaller regional markets, and quickly found themselves dominant cheap airfare retailers there (the company operates under a variety of different regional brands, like AviaSales.Ru in Russia), so a decision has been made to open additonal regional offices in Thailand and Hong Kong, as well as to launch central worldwide portal that would directly compete with the biggest cheap airfare providers in 2012.

If JetRadar is successful, these cheap airline tickets are about to get even cheaper.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Moms Making Millions - Melody Hsieh/Mobo Cruiser

Entrepreneurism runs in Melody Hsieh's blood. Her parents operated an auto parts factory in Taiwan, where she once worked at the age of 8.

"I learned early in life that hard work and smart work are the essential ingredients to running a successful business," she said.

So after college in 2000, Hsieh decided to start a company, with family money, that sold scooters. By 2003, sales at her ASA Products surged to $3 million.

But in the next three years, annual sales quickly plummeted to $300,000. "My mistake was that I had no long-term strategy to build my brand," she said. "I was just pursuing a hot trend, and not paying attention to competition, customer service or marketing."

In 2006, she took a hiatus from her company and went back to school for her MBA. In late 2006, she relaunched a new product -- Mobo Cruisers -- a line of three-wheeled cruisers for kids and adults. "This time I applied what I learned in school about marketing, operations and research before I launched the brand," said Hsieh.

Today, Mobo Cruisers is sold through Target and Toys "R" Us and expanding into Canada. Hsieh, who's a new mom to her three-month-old son, said she's busier than ever now. "Women can do it. It's hard but you don't have to give up one role for the other," she said. "Have a routine that works for you and stick to it."

Cools Startups - Lookmazing.Com Review

Fashion and beauty magazines, online or otherwise, have a captive niche market. That is because everyone appreciates beauty. While there may be an exception to the rule, a lot of people appreciate fashion, too. And believe it or not, there are people who find time to simply sit and admire others who look good. LookMazing founder and CEO, Doris Lin, is one of such people.

LookMazing is an invitation-only site for fashion trendsetters, the fashion-obsessed, people whose passion for fashion is highly contagious. The site is currently on the lookout for models, artists, stylists and fashion-forward individuals who have the eye for style. The idea is to allow these style icons to showcase their looks to an online audience of emulators and admirers.

LookMazing is focused on featuring looks, not products, the premise being whether it be a $10 shirt or a $1,000 pair of stilettos, wearing a particular product does not constitute a look. The site features real people with a real sense of style because formulating a look is, in and of itself, an art that makes seemingly ordinary products look extraordinary.

The site is currently in private beta to give their members time to build their profiles before they are unveiled to a broader community. Once in full swing, LookMazing aims to be able to help its members discover people with a similar taste for fashion, compare prices, get exclusive deals and invitations to sales, the opportunity to be featured in LookMazing's online magazine, share videos and images of looks while tagging featured items in LookMazing's closet. LookMazing's closet is a collection of hundreds of thousands of items from popular retailers, and LookMazing intends to grow it every single day to bring the latest fashion trends and hottest finds to its online community.

LookMazing's objective is to make everyone look amazing. For more cool startups, visit PickyDomains.com

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Millionaire Mompreneurs - Amy Norman/Stella Ma

As colleagues at eBay in the early 2000s, Amy Norman and Stella Ma shared an entrepreneurial "itch" and knew they wanted to collaborate on a business at some point. When the two were starting families, they honed in on an idea for finding a fun and inspiring way to teach kids about other countries.

"I moved a lot internationally as a child," said Norman. "Stella grew up in Oakland but she shared my passion for instilling a global perspective in kids."

With funding from family and angel investors, including LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Little Passports was born. The online subscription service send kids ages 5 to 10 a monthly package designed to look like it's coming from a different country. Kids get stickers, a world map, souvenirs, and letters from characters Sam and Sofia describing their travel adventures.

Little Passport became Norman's saving grace when it launched in 2006. "I was eight months pregnant with my second child and my marriage fell apart," she said. "I had to move out of the apartment, I was trying to launch my business and I had no salary. Around the same time, her father was also diagnosed with cancer and died four months later.

But her passion to get Little Passport off the ground kept her going.

Norman, 38, and Ma, 40, launched in 2009, and sales crossed $1 million this year. Norman said overcoming such steep odds has made her a more confident woman and role model to her kids.

"This is a story about overcoming," she said. "We surrounded ourselves with people who supported us, we believed in ourselves. It's the most fun we've ever had and we're better businesswomen and moms because of it."

Friday, May 11, 2012

How To Get Free CRM For Your Small Business

If you run a small business, you know good CRM software does miracles. But it also costs you money, which is always an issue for small companies. Here is a small 'lifehack' ('bizhack'?) that you may find useful. Bitrix24.com is a new social intranet startup that offers free CRM software to contractors, solo entrepreneurs and companies that have up to 12 employees. And since it's online, you can have access to it any time.

So what does free CRM from Bitrix24 look like? First, it has a database for all your clients and prospects that are easily sorted by events (phone call or meeting, for instance). Next comes the sales funnel that divides your clients into logical groups - new prospects, first contact, requested quote, scheduled meeting, negotiations and sales (the funnel is 100% customizable by you).

Bitrix24 free CRM is designed for easy interactions with clients. For example, you can send an e-mail to a certain group (like new prospects) as well as import/export any client information (like phone numbers of clients that have been inactive for over 6 month).

But wait, there is more, as they say on the late night television. With this free CRM you can assign rights and roles to your employees, which is really handy when every sales person in the marketing department is responsible only for his or her prospects, while the department supervisor or business owner needs to have access to all data.

If necessary, you can integrate your website with this CRM, so every time a lead is generated on your website, it automatically feeds into Bitrix Free CRM. If you'd like to have more information about features available, see http://www.bitrix24.com/features/crm.php

Once again, the system is 100% free if your company has 12 employees or less, and it's only $99 a month, if your sales force is bigger. And, it should be noted, that free online CRM is only one of the features available - there's also instant messenger, task planner, project manager, scheduler, and other online tools that help your business grow.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Fame.Me Aspires To Become Net's American Idol

Imagine American Idol on Facebook. Yes, not on TV, but on Facebook. Further still, imagine American Idol without Jennifer Lopez, Randy Jackson and Steve Tyler, but just the American population spotting the next big singing sensation.

Impossible? Not quite.

Brett Marl of Fame.Me is looking to up the game by bringing a contest like American Idol to the Facebook generation, more like turning an interactive TV show into an even more interactive, accessible website. If that sounds a lot like YouTube to you, consider this: 60 hours of video is uploaded into YouTube every minute of the day so that getting spotted in a crowd like that is like finding a needle in a haystack – but probably not if you're a kitten or an adorable baby with a toothless grin.

FameMe is structured like a contest. The judges are people at home, sitting in front of their computers, with three chances to vote for their favorite performers dai ly. FameMe makes full use of existing social media, Facebook and probably Twitter in the future, for both contestants and supporters to campaign for votes.

Fame.Me is only four months old, but Marl and his team are confident the site will be the next big thing.

Monday, May 07, 2012

The Mom And Pop Business - Successful Parenting Startups To Watch

Meet the Origami the world's first power-folding stroller, brought to you by Pittsburgh-based 4moms. With the push of a button, Origami folds and unfolds, operated by built-in generators that charge as you walk. The stroller even has an LCD screen that displays the battery charge, distance walked, current temperature and a cute image that confirms the Origami "knows" a child is in the seat. (The company promises the device will not fold up and "eat" children.) This is a seriously high-tech stroller, with a price tag to match: It retails for $850.

Online magazine Babble has been shaking up the parenting industry since its launch in 2006. Loaded with informative, controversial and often humorous content that includes everything from C-section facts and stroller-buying guides to dad blogs, Babble has seen its audience grow an average of 15 percent each month since launch. About 5 million people checked out the free magazine in December; Time recognized it as one of the 50 Best Websites in 2010.

Plum District introduced the daily deal trend to modern moms. The site offers bargains (up to 80 percent off) from local businesses that appeal to savvy moms, such as spa trips, family activities, weekend getaways and cool gadgets. Plum District has clearly found its niche: Founded in 2010, it recently closed a $20 million Series C funding round and had nearly 1 million subscribers as of December.

Kidworth is a free online service designed to teach children how to save and spend money wisely. Parents create an account, then set long- and short-term financial goals with their kids, such as saving for college or donating to charity. The goals can be shared through social media, e-mail or Kidworth's electronic invitations and holiday cards; family and friends can donate to the cause by purchasing gift cards online. Kidworth launched in December 2010; the value of goals processed through the site has reached more than $110,000.

Buying baby name books is so 1990s. Founded by a busy dad, PickyDomains was intended as a risk-free naming service for businesses and domains, that is until media wrote about wacky Canadian couple who crowdsourced their baby name to the company (baby boy was named Color Sword Raven). Another reason for PickyDomain's popularity among parents is that working as a namer usually takes only 10-15 minutes a day, where as other freelancing gigs typical for the stay at home moms and dads, like writing, telemarketing or being a virtual assistant, can take a few hours out of each day.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

From Police Work To Sauerkraut

Tom forrest, owner of Wills Valley & Forrest Acre Farm in Lancaster, maintains that sauerkraut, done right, doesn’t need refrigeration or a warehouse. “There’s not a whole lot of equipment that we use,” he explains of Wills Valley, his minimalist organic vegetable fermentation production. “We’re taking [the product] right out of the crock, putting it in a jar and putting a lid on it.”

Raw food fermentation, the art of processing using microorganisms, preserves fresh vegetables, dairy, and dried meats by enabling healthful bacterial strands and yeasts to break down food in the absence of oxygen. This process alters flavor and texture while increasing the available nutrient content. The aging process can take weeks – in some cases months – giving craft foods like cheeses, beer and chocolate distinct and subtle flavors.

Forrest ferments vegetables the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch way, with 52 original stoneware crocks, each holding up to 65 pounds of vegetables. The farm workers pack the produce weekly with sea salt and water, sourcing certified organic vegetables by the truckload from small organic farms, mostly within the immediate region. In addition to kraut, Wills Valley makes salty, sour, and slightly sweet pickled beets, kimchee and ginger carrots.

Forrest, a former policeman, quit the force in 2000 at the age of 30 to start his first farm in Salem, N.J. He bought Wills Valley from Tim Bock, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer and retired engineer, whom he had met at a farmers market. Bock, who began work at the farm by making sauerkraut from a family recipe, was ready to retire.

Acquiring an old-fashioned fermentation practice proved to be a solid business move, but also spoke to Forrest on a gut level. The traditional fermenting method is, in all likelihood, older than fire and is practiced by most native cultures. In recent years, fermentation has been popularized by food activists, including Sally Fallon (Nourishing Traditions) and Sandor Katz (Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved).

Forrest, an avid follower of Fallon and professional acquaintance of Katz, believes in traditional methods of processing foods, which do not include preservatives, stabilizers or refrigeration. When he brought the Wills Valley product to the Kutztown market, he found older patrons were nostalgic, recalling kraut-making as their first job. With current culture putting more focus on avoiding frozen and commercially-processed foods of the post-World War II era, Forrest sees his products playing an important role in both our culinary history and future.